Modern Technology must also be appropriate, cost effective and beneficial

Oct 11, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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There were calls for “Kwame” to step down pending the investigation of a taped telephone conversation which made its way into the public domain; before that there were calls for Dr. Leslie Ramsammy to also step down until the outcome of investigations into allegations, which surfaced during the Robert Simels’ trial.
I will leave it to the public to decide whether in light of the fact that a leading trade unionist is before the courts on labour-related charges, whether that trade unionist should also step down until the determination of his trial.
While readers ponder over that issue, I would like to address some important thoughts to the media and the manner in which they present the news. We seem to now be in a mode in this country where Ministers rather than the government are doing things or rather this is how the media is allowing itself to publicize certain developments in the country.
On Friday, we read about the Ministry of Home Affairs donating fire tenders to the Guyana Fire Service. Well, this is the responsibility of the government. It is supposed to ensure a well-equipped fire service and thus from time to time will be expected to ensure that new fire tenders are acquired.
While the acquisition may be a matter of public interest, it cannot be presented in such a manner as if the Ministry of Home Affairs is doing a good deed for the fire service. It is their job to ensure that the Guyana Fire Service has tenders. It is ridiculous to learn about the Ministry of Home Affairs handing over fire tenders to the Guyana Fire Service as if the Ministry of Home Affairs is not the very Ministry responsible for the Guyana Fire Service.
Reporting on matters of national development is all part of the process of accountability. But it must also be made clear that the government’s job is to share out house lots and provide improved drainage and irrigation and thus when these things happen they must not be presented in such a manner as if the subject minister concerned is doing a special favor to someone.
Unfortunately, even the most routine of undertaking becomes a ribbon cutting and press event and the media, while committed to reporting on development, must avoid at all times making the Ministers concerned more important than the responsibility of the government to do the very things that are being reported on.
One of the things reported in the media is the importation into Guyana of laser leveling tractors. We are told that this represents the introduction of modern technology into the land preparation process.
It is good to have access to modern technology. There was time when we were being encouraged to use coal pots when stoves were being made more efficient.
The introduction of modern technology can represent progress but in introducing the technology, it must be appropriate, cost effective, beneficial and most importantly we must have the requisite know-how to make use of the technology.
If the Ministry of Agriculture saw it fit to bring in laser leveling equipment to be used in rice fields, it first needed to establish, not the track record of the equipment in other countries, but the need for it in Guyana. Thus the equipment and technology needed to undergo detailed trail tests in Guyana so as to avoid us importing expensive machinery, which will yield only marginal results.
This laser leveling equipment we are told costs some $20M. Now that is a huge sum when compared, for example, to an ordinary tractor which with adaptations can also level the fields.
The leveling of fields is not a new practice. It is carried out at present.
However, unlike many countries in the world where undulations in fields and scarcity of water pose problems for farmers, in Guyana the bulk of our agriculture is done on the flat coastal belt. Thus there is not that great a need for laser technology to level fields as there is in countries with undulating terrain.
In Guyana, the need to conserve water is not the problem. The problem is often too much water or inadequate means of getting the waters to the land. Thus the savings that would accrue to farmers in other countries that are utilizing land-leveling technology may not be the same in Guyana.
This technology demands that farmers or those persons involved in land preparation have an understanding of how to operate this technology. The eventual widespread use of this technology will thus entail high training costs which must be factored into the process of deciding whether this technology is worth the high cost or whether conventional methods of land leveling would not yield better returns in Guyana.
For these reasons, it is unfortunate that the introduction of mechanized land leveling using laser technology is being promoted by the media as a significant development in the agricultural sector.
Land leveling machinery has not yet established in Guyana that it is worth the high cost.

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